


Packing for Paris

by gisho



Category: Girl Genius
Genre: Sibling Bonding, cunning schemes, narrative parallels, warning: discussion of emotional abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-13 11:39:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14111553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gisho/pseuds/gisho
Summary: Wherein two future students of the Academie de la Extraordinaire fret about what to bring and what they have to leave behind.





	Packing for Paris

\--

"You really can't come with me to Paris, though. Sorry." Gil finds himself rubbing his left ankle with his right foot, which is a habit he should probably get rid of. Should probably have gotten rid of long since. 

Zoing's antennae droop, and his whole body curls inward a little. He doesn't say anything.

"It's not safe." Gil wants to pick Zoing up and give him a hug, but it wouldn't be fair. "Look, you'll be just fine here. You can still help out in the student labs. Or the Baron's lab, if you're sick of students."

"Noyu," Zoing declares indignantly, and hops up next to Gil on the bed. His antennae are quivering now. 

Okay, he may as well go for the hug. Gil takes a deep breath and tries not to bury his nose so far in the furry collar of Zoing's coat he starts to sneeze. It's an awful thought, leaving his friend behind; he hadn't _built in_ loyalty but Zoing still seems horribly dependent on Gil's presence, as loyal as the Jägers were to the Heterodyne. And just like them, like the Radioheads and Novaki's lizard-men and poor Miss Pantagruel, he's going to end up with Klaus Wulfenbach when his creator abandons him.

No. He shouldn't think like that, Gil tells himself. He'll be coming back in a few years. And Zoing has never gotten the hang of writing, but he can read if he concentrates; Gil will just have to send letters. Lots of letters.

\--

It's a subtle form of protest, maybe, that Anevka is wearing her travelling boots. She tends to wander around Sturmhalten in silk slippers, just thick enough to keep the chill away. But her smile is impeccable as she says, "Which cipher?"

Tarvek rolls his eyes, but he leans back and lets her drape an arm over his shoulders. It should bother him to have hands so close to his throat. "I'm sure you can figure it out. I'll probably use a different one for every letter. Keep you on your toes."

"Oh, you're no fun." She tugs him closer. "Just don't forget about your poor sister while you're gallivanting about Paris, alright?"

"As if I could forget." He turns just enough to look her in the eyes. This might be a snowbound fortress where no sensible person would spend the winter by choice, but there are things here he'll miss, and Anevka is first on that list. 

But still: Paris. In Balan's Gap there are two theatres, the Prince's with its disconcerting artillery and the Schnitzel Hall with its slat benches and sawdust floor. Paris has dozens. Paris has an opera house, and concert halls, and chocolatiers - he'll have to send Violetta samples of all their chocolate mimmoths, so she can do a proper comparison study. 

And Paris has relatives. Tarvek knows, by now, how to deal with relatives. At least none of them will be his father.

\--

Klaus's lab is deserted, which is lucky; it spares Gil lying about why they're raiding the place. Not that he couldn't get tools in Paris, but he'll work faster with familiar ones. He passes the half-moon wrenches to Zoing, then takes the metahexaflourile kugelrohr apparatus down and eyeballs it for a box. It will need to be protected in transit. Hmm. "Do you see any packing foam in there?" he calls to Zoing, who's investigating a storage closet. 

Zoing chirrups, but doesn't emerge from the closet. Gil bites his lip and eyes the set of Steinmetz flasks. No, he decides, they're standardized, he can pick some up in the corner lab supply store once he gets there. But the aluminium-alloy ramekins he might have to cross the city for, so down they come, sliding neatly into each other. 

There's a tug at his waistcoat, and Gil looks down. Zoing is holding up an oversized pink bottle of isocyanate, antennae perked up and proud. 

"That's brilliant," Gil tells him. He must be more tired than he thought, not to have thought of it himself. "Can you find me a nitrogen tank?"

A few minutes later the apparatus is waiting in a crate barely big enough to fit it in, and Gil has a nozzle borrowed from the distilled water supply pointed at the inside. "Ready?" he asks. Zoing proudly holds up the crate lid. Right. Gil slowly tilts the assemblage in his right hand, and after a few burbling, nervous seconds the nozzle begins to emit foam. It's more of a glorp than a spray, but there it is. Gil beams as it starts to fill in around the delicate glass curls of the apparatus. Another problem solved by Science, and once he gets to Paris he can work out how to dissolve the stuff. The foam bubbles up right to the top of the crate, Zoing slams the lid down. Gil throws the latches. One packing-case with prominent Wulfenbach sigil, ready to go.

They do the rest of the glassware that way too, to prevent breakage; then the mortar and piston, in case of chipping; then the drill set, because it's there. Zoing hops on top the resulting pile of boxes and does his best to look smug. "Algud."

"Absolutely. We could probably chuck it out a dock hatch and it'd land in one piece."

"Please don't test that," says a dry voice from the door. 

Gil almost jumps, for all he's trained away those kinds of reflexes. It is not fair that a man as tall as his father can move so quietly. "Of course not," he says. "You'd need accelerometers to check it properly."

\--

"You can get better ones in Paris," Anevka points out. She's sprawled out over Tarvek's armchair, gown tugged down just enough to make her breathing obvious. "This year's patterns."

"And what, go naked until I can go shopping? That's not exactly the kind of splash I was hoping to make in Paris." Tarvek hurls the armful of shirts at the footman, who staggers back from the unexpected weight. 

His sister has a smile he'd call hungry, if it weren't on his sister. "You could pull it off. You have the muscles for it." 

"No."

"You're no fun." Anevka pouts, and then somehow slithers back to sitting upright, ankles crossed and a regal smirk on her lips. "Will you at least send me a few of this season's gowns? If Father ever remembers he promised me an opera, I intend to outshine the entire town."

The footman has gotten the shirts as far as flat on his bed, so Tarvek starts in on the waistcoats. Purple, violet, purple with red trim - another nice thing about Paris: you're expected to suit your complexion, not match your crest. He really will have to go shopping right away. "I'll do you better than that," he promises. "I'll send you gowns like no one else has seen."

"Preferably not because they were too hideous to sew together."

"Don't you trust my eye by now?"

"Your eye, yes." But her smile takes the sting from it. 

Their father won't remember about the opera, and they both know it. He has no patience for anything but his experiments. The Prince’s Theatre is reserved for unlucky travelling players and the occasional court case brought by nincompoops. But at least he can give Anevka a suitably theatrical wardrobe while she's trapped up here in the snow, and to that end - hmm. He knows in theory, he has her measurements all written down in his notebook, but this is the perfect excuse. "I need one of your gowns," he tells her. 

Anevka has a very nice laugh, sometimes, depending on what she's laughing at. "Come on, then."

The footman looks like he doesn't know how to simultaneously wait on them and finish the packing; Tarvek takes pity on him and waves him back as they sweep out the door.

In Anevka's closet, Tarvek leans on the doorframe while she flicks through her gowns, considering each one for a few narrow-eyed seconds before deeming it worthy to keep, or ill-fitting enough to be useless to him. Her fingers stop on a narrow, lace-encrusted thing in that shade of seafoam green that doesn't flatter anyone. "Will this do?"

"Perfectly." It must have taken two maids to lace her into it, the one time she wore it. Too tight to sweep up to people and charm them witless. "Do you care if it gets cut up for patterns?"

"Not in the slightest." Anevka tosses her hair back, and presses the gown to his shoulders like she's trying to convince him to try it on. It would be hopeless; his shoulders are too broad for any of his sister's clothes with sleeves, by now. "You should know," she says, voice low to keep it from carrying through the walls, "I made a deal with Seffie. A truce."

"Truce?" He blinks, stupidly. They like each other well enough, but he can't imagine Anevka and Seffie actually working together. 

Anekva squeezes his shoulder; it makes the dress crinkle. "Try to keep up, dear. She's guaranteed, if you die in Paris, Tweedle will die in public."

He finds himself bristling pre-emptively at the thought. "Paris is supposed to be a neutral zone."

"Or in other words, Tweedle would have to be sneakier than Grandma. It might not be likely, but it's possible." She rolls her eyes and lets him go. 

"Thank you, then."

His sister laughs again, making an abstracted half-curtsey. "You can thank me with Sturmhalten when you have the Lightning Crown."

What concessions Seffie got from her, Tarvek doesn't ask. Either it was something enormous, or Seffie thought the idea of Tweedle making a premature move was absurd and sold a phantom for something Anevka thought was a bargain; she may be young and sentimental but Seffie's certainly not stupid. He spins around to examine the rest of his sister's clothes, rather than think about it too hard. 

\--

"You shouldn't have any problems with the courseload."

Gil nods again and tries not to feel very small and inadequate. He sometimes wonders what his father will do when he finally runs into some problem he just can't deal with. He only barely worked out that business with the Grand Duke Boromir's clank supply caravans, and Klaus had snapped about how he'd have to do better than that, which was true enough to leave Gil lying awake wondering if he should just fake his own death and turn to piracy, except that his father would be so disappointed. 

Klaus pulls a piece of paper from his shirt pocket. "Memorize this and destroy it," he says, and slides the paper across the desk."

Gil picks it up, squinting at the tiny handwriting. It's in a simple substitution cipher, of course, because Klaus is downright paranoid. _Armand Dupont, 43 Rue des Saules, antidisestablishmentarianism. Miss Lucinda Knowles, Apartment 23, Maison Céruléen, greensleeves is my heart's delight_. Gil's heartbeat speeds up. It's a little hard to believe that his father has just _handed_ him a list of all their agents in Paris, he's certainly _not_ on the need-to-know list and this will have to be destroyed post-haste, unless - "People I might need to work with?" And here he'd been hoping, however futilely, that four degree's worth of courses in four years would be the only demands on his time.

But his father shakes his head. "People who can help you, if you're in serious trouble."

Oh.

Gil nods, and tucks the paper into his waistcoat. "If it's a matter of life or death," he agrees. It wouldn't be worth blowing someone's cover for less, and if he's in _that_ sort of trouble he'll have to assume he's blowing the cover of anyone who helps him. "Thank you."

His father looks tired. It's an expression Gil has seen on his face more and more lately, as the creases in his face grow deeper and the grey hairs give way to white. He shakes his head again, just a tiny fraction, more a gesture to dislodge a thought than an attempt to say no. "I've invested a lot in you, Gilgamesh," he says, voice soft and stern. "I don't intend to throw it away cheaply."

"Of course not." Gil swallows. "I'll be careful, Father."

"See that you do." Klaus goes still, then his hand flickers out and closes over Gil's. "You'll do perfectly well," he says, as if he were trying to convince himself of it. 

The moonlight is slanting in through the Baron's windows, glinting off the support fleet. Gil could name them all, if he thought about it, from the subtle variations of orange and purple in their envelopes, the different shapes of their superstructures, stars or spikes or pelicans of their forecrests. He can name all the avenues of Paris on a map, but not by eye. It's going to be so strange living somewhere he doesn't know.

\--

Down here below the basements and the cellars and the sewers, the Ghost Ladies' caverns are always warm. For no good geological reason - Balan's Gap wasn't built through a volcano, and in absolute terms these caverns are still above the treeline. Tarvek has counted steps walking down, done the triangulations. He hopes it's only a side effect of one of their strange biological experiments, and not that they're trying to recreate the One-way Door. 

It's not the glowing green things they're growing in tanks in here, at least. The lab is a little colder than their spider-stables. Tarvek leans in to examine the aeration mechanism, which for some reason is a paddlewheel instead of the traditional compressed-air valve. "Poisonous?"

"Of course." Vrin smirks. "They're guardian creatures. I wouldn't advise touching the tentacles." 

"I _am_ familiar with the elementary principles of lab safety, yes." Tarvek barely resists the urge to roll his eyes; he wants Vrin to think he's a pushover, not an infant. "They certainly look nasty. The bioluminescence is a nice touch."

She waves a hand. "A side-effect. You have fascinating creatures in the _deep-down_ here." 

"That happens everywhere the basements are big enough. People say there are poisonous toads big enough to eat a goat in the Mechanicsburg caverns. And of course the mole people under Paris, but you must have run into them by now, right?" He gives a rueful little shrug. There's the bait set. 

And Vrin is clever, or she wouldn't be High Priestess, but she's not exactly devious. She draws up like an angry cat, reaching instinctively for the sword she's not carrying. "And what makes you think we know anything about Paris?"

"Oh, Father told me you were infiltrating there." He'd said it hadn't worked, too, that half their scouts had vanished outright and the rest come back in disarray and distress. 

But that would just be taunting her to point out. 

Tarvek blinks in confusion while her hackles settle. "Aren't you? There are plenty of women in Paris who might be suitable. Getting them out of the city might be a challenge, but -"

"It's no concern of yours."

"Alright. I was only going to offer to help you," He runs a hand through his hair, scowling at nothing in particular. It's too easy to slip into real annoyance, with Vrin. Nineteen of twenty of her barbs are just sad to hear and the twentieth is poisoned. "We can't get your Lady back without someone to transfer her into. Unless you're volunteering."

He had only meant it as a casual dig, but Vrin stiffens. "We are not worthy or suitable," she informs him, somewhere between a snap and a hiss. Her hand closes on a long electric probe, not really a weapon, but still something that could be painful jabbed into his flesh. 

Tarvek can take a hint. He takes a few easy strides toward the elevator. 

He has what he came down here for. Vrin thinks he's eager to get the Lady back, and that his father is careless and maybe, just maybe, not to be trusted completely. And her own pride will keep her from asking him to kidnap ladies from Paris for them, now. An unexpected bonus. Even if he could fleece the Master, well. 

"Father's going about it exactly the wrong way, throwing every sparky girl he finds at your machine," he points out. "If we set up some proper neural monitoring next time we'd at least know what parts of it are going wrong." He's awfully close to that tank, and the slime creature inside is nudging inquisitively against the glass. At least they will have made the glass strong. 

He smiles helpfully while Vrin thinks this over, and for a moment Tarvek thinks he's misjudged and she's about to drive him out with the electroprobe and leave some very difficult-to-explain burns. But Vrin's scheming tendencies win out, and she slowly nods. "Something to consider."

"Yes." Tarvek shrugs, as if it were a casual thought. "You'll find the right one eventually. The Lady wouldn't abandon you here."

"Of course not." Vrin draws herself up again, but this time like a soldier on parade. "Do well in Paris, Master Tarvek."

"Good luck."

Vrin's voice floats out of the darkness behind him as he fumbles for the elevator controls. "If we send word, can we count on your aid in our quest?" 

He wouldn't say it if the grate weren't already closing behind him, but Tarvek can't resist a little rhetorical flourish. "<I know exactly how important your quest is, Lady Vrin.>"

As the elevator rattles back up toward the dungeons of Sturmhalten, Tarvek lets his head thump against its wall and takes deep breaths. He knows the Ghost Ladies don't want him dead yet. Some of them are even fond of him. But talking to Vrin leaves him feeling like a mimmoth that's only alive because the local cat was feeling playful. 

It's not important. He's going to Paris. Paris, where there are strange underground civilizations and one of them is the _Immortal Library_. People he can _talk_ to. The guardians of Van Rijn's legacy, the people who will know the secrets of the Muses if any living soul does. He picks out that thought to hold it tight. 

\--

Von Pinn rests her hand on his shoulder. She doesn't have to bend down to do it anymore, which Gil still hasn't quite gotten used to. Maybe when he comes home again. "You'll be missed here as well," she tells him, in the low, gravelly voice she uses when in the grip of some intense emotion. 

It's nice to think that someone he didn't make will. Gil looks across the room at the stack of crates, then down at his feet, and takes a deep breath. "I have a favour to ask you," he says. "It's a bit out of your way."

"Ask." Of course, it's Von Pinn, she's never indirect.

"It's about Zoing. Will you, well, check in on him? Make sure he's alright?" Von Pinn looks surprised, but she doesn't protest right away, so Gil plunges on. "He's going to be reassigned to the Baron's lab, but - I don't want him to get lonely. The Baron gets called away all the time, and most people don't really understand him, and, well - Please?"

There's only a second before she answers, but it feels amazingly long. Gil makes a mental note to find some neurology books in case anyone's worked out how to use the effect. "Of course, young master." 

"And, er." This is the embarrassing part, but by the time he'd thought it through there hadn't been _time_ to train a dictation clank on Zoing's voice. "If he wants to write to me, maybe you can get one of the students to help? Someone who's working on their handwriting." 

He would have asked Theo, but Theo's avoiding him. Doing a good job of it, too; he hasn't been to breakfast or dinner in two days. Maybe it's just too awkward to talk to someone when you've just refused to come to Paris with them so you can stay closer to the girl you have a hopeless crush on. 

He could have talked his father into it, Gil is almost sure. Theo is an orphan. 

"Someone will help," Von Pinn tells him, which is probably the closest to a promise he's going to get. She presses the side of a claw beneath Gil's chin. Making him look her in the eyes. "You will _not_ be gone forever. Remember that. "

"It's the first thing on my mind," Gil says. He takes one more despairing look around the room, the empty shelves where his books used to be and the neatly-made bed. It won't be his room when he comes back, of course. Some other student will have it, one fragile enough for the dubious, cramped privilege of a room all to themselves. "I won't let you down."

\--

There's one more person he needs to visit before he leaves, tempted though Tarvek is to slink out and claim, later, that his father must have forgotten him stopping by. It's not like he has any intention of coming back for holidays. If his father wants to see him in the next four years, he can damn well pry himself out of the lab and pay a visit to Grandmother. It's not like he couldn't get a flight.

But he won't, so Tarvek knocks on the door of his office instead and smoothes his face into a devoted filial smile. 

"Come in, Artacz," Prince Aaronev calls through the door. 

Tarvek opens it and slips in, waiting for the lock to catch behind him before he coughs deliberately. "It's Tarvek, actually." 

"Tarvek?" Aaronev sounds like he's trying to place the name. Then he spins around in his chair, face clearing. "Tarvek! I thought you would have left already, my boy. You seemed so eager to be gone."

"I couldn't go without saying goodbye properly." Tarvek doesn't let the smile slip. "But I can't stay long. The airship leaves in forty minutes, and it will take twenty to get to the docks."

"Yes, yes, of course." He frowns. "Are you stopping off in Vienna? Can you drop in on Van Bulen?" 

The papers strewn over the Prince's desk - because why bother keeping them neat, they're only government business - are hard to read upside down, but Tarvek is used to making the effort, just in case there's anything worth knowing between the usual mess of landlord's disputes, attempted smuggling and tax evasion, and occasional nasty murder. He looks down to hide his hurried glance at something stamped with the crest of the Knights of Jove, but it's only the letter from Snarlatz that Anevka already spotted, confirming that he got the wasp-matrix samples. It really shouldn't be left out where Vrin can see. Tarvek leaves it lie. "I'm afraid I won't have time," he says. "We'll only be on the ground an hour for refuelling." He could transfer to the overnight flight if it's that important, but if Aaronev isn't going to suggest it Tarvek won't point it out.

"Hhmph. Very well." Aaronev frowns at nothing in particular, and then spots the letter from Snarlatz and snatches it away. "I expect you'll have no problems with university. Why, it'll be a grand time. I remember when I was your age ..." He looks lost in the grip of some nostalgic memory for a few moments, then yanks himself back to reality with a shake of the head. "Anyway, do your best to enjoy yourself. Sow some wild oats if you like. Just remember what lady is most important to us."

Of course it comes back to that. Tarvek keeps smiling. "I've already spoken to Vrin," he says. "There should be plenty of candidates in Paris."

\--

Gil leans back against the cabin wall and tries to relax, which isn't exactly easy with Jägers on either side of him. And in most of the rest of the cabin. On their way to Lillibelle to back up a Questor about to storm the local madboy's lab, apparently, and willing to talk about it with their captive audience at length.

At about the point where Gil feels like he could storm the lab himself from their descriptions, and it probably shows, the deep blue fellow with the impressive yellow fangs leans in. "So vat iz hyu doing in Lillibelle, nize boy like hyu?"

"Catching a train to Paris." Gil shrugs apologetically. "I'm supposed to be going to university there." 

"Oho! Schmott kid, den." The Jäger claps him on the back, and Gil tenses a little to keep drom being knocked out of his seat. "Ven hyu get dere, hyu go visit de Cinq Tonneaux. Iz a bar," he adds, leaning in close as if he were telling a secret. "Und dey makes a vunderful rhubarb pie. Hyu tell dem Falco sends hiz regardz, hokay?"

"Hokay." Gil blinks. 

"I remember de rhubarb pie," protests the olive-drab Jäger on his other side. "He'z jest a kid, we shuld _warn_ him about de rhubarb pie."

"Hokay, hokay." Falco snorts. "De rhubarb pie hez a kick. It gives hyu hangovers. Und vorse if Eliza iz testing recipes. Happy now?" he throws over Gil's head, which is how Gil realizes he's hunched over and trying to hide under his collar. 

He really needs a new set of habits. 

No time like the present. Gil takes a deep breath, and straightens his shoulders, He's on his way to _Paris_ , and he might as well enjoy himself there. "Thanks for the recommendation," he tells them. "I'll make sure to bring aspirin when I try it."

"Dat's de spirit!" The olive-drab Jäger gives him a broad, toothy grin. "Hyu iz going to love Paris. Dey don't call it de City of Lightning for nutting."

"Hyah," Falco adds. "Vill be un adventure."

Adventure. He can deal with that. 

\--

Tarvek leans against the window for the cool touch of the glass, and keeps his eyes closed so he doesn't have to look at the ground getting further and further away, the fall getting longer. It doesn't matter if he looks undignified here. He's alone in the cabin.

It's bad form, careless, to show so much weakness even if he's alone, but Tarvek is too exhausted to do anything else. He's bleakly tempted to knock himself out with his own valneferin essence and maybe even feel rested by the time they land in Paris, but there's careless and there's suicidal. Still, he can keep his eyes closed and do breathing exercises and imagine the distant hum of the engines is just the furnace ramping up against the winter sleet; this is a passenger liner, too big to feel the shifting deck or be buffeted by passing winds. 

And think about Paris. He has so much to do there. First things first, make some alliances. Befriend Colette Voltaire. Grandmother says she's incredibly clever, society gossip says she's besieged with admirers, scurrilous gossip says she wields the proverbial cutlass; if all goes well and he ends up wearing lavender as her escort, it will only cement his own reputation as a hopeless fop. Talk to the most helpful people at the Immortal Library – sometimes if you get people to do you favours, they’ll convince themselves you're worth doing favours for, and he thinks an eager seeker after the Muses will be someone they’ll like, with the added advantage of being completely real. Befriend as many professors as he can, but he won't know which ones until he's had the chance to size them up personally; Uncle Tick-Tock's recommendations were hopelessly muddled in interacademic politics, not to mention describing one metachemist older than Uncle Tick-Tock as a _nice young lad_. If it's a mask of pointless burble it's a brilliant one. 

Enough to keep Uncle Tick-Tock safely out of the game, at least. Tarvek admires that. He can't imitate it. He's playing to win. And his father has been careless enough to send him back to the board, after six years trying to follow everyone else's moves from rumours and Grandfather's letters and what he could see on the occasional holiday trip to Vienna. He hasn't set foot in Paris in four years. 

He let his mask slip on Castle Wulfenbach, and he's been paying for it ever since. But Tarvek has no intention of wasting his second chance. 

Simple. Make friends, make plans, and keep everything secret from his family, which by now is an easy and comfortable habit. He's never told them his real plans for claiming the Lightning Crown. He's never so much as spoken the name 'Gil Hölzfaller' where it might get back to a relative, even to Anevka. He's never told them about the things Eotain and Shrdlu let slip, but he remembers them. Oh, he very much remembers them. 

Tarvek opens his eyes. They're into the clouds by now, and the damp grey swirls against the window like smoke. Smoke feels nothing. Yes. Tarvek keeps still and focuses on his pulse, and it's already slowing down. He lets the tension seep out of his trembling fists, and thinks about fogbanks and blank grey walls and four years to lay a foundation. 

\--

It occurs to Gil, three steps off the gangplank, that this is the first time he's set foot on the ground in - when was the last time? Three years ago, on the twenty-fourth of March, when Sleipnir had a fit of pity and invited him to come home with her for spring planting. He'd talked his father into letting him by pointing out all the reasons students with lands went home for planting and harvest applied to him too, but Gil has a lurking suspicion his father only agreed for lack of a reason to keep him on board that wouldn't blow his cover. He absently does the maths while he curls his toes on the landing field, which of course tells him nothing because he's wearing boots. A thousand and three days. It's been a thousand and three days since he set foot on land. 

Falco must notice something, because he sets a surreptitious hand on Gil's waist to keep him steady. "Hyu need to get your land legs beck?" he whispers. Well, as much as a Jäger ever whispers. 

It's an absurd thought. Castle Wulfenbach is too big too rock with the wind. 

"Yeah," Gil says. "Land legs." 

\---


End file.
